Rand Paul Should Be Detained If He Refused TSA Pat-Down

Just this afternoon Rand Paul, US Senator from Kentucky and son of Texas Congressman and presidential candidate Ron Paul, was reportedly detained by TSA agents at the Nashville airport. Politico.com says he set off an alarm during a routine passenger screening. Soon afterward Rand's spokeswoman said, “I spoke with him five minutes ago and he was being detained indefinitely. The image scan went off; he refused pat-down.”

TSA confirms that Rand Paul set off an alarm and refused the routine pat-down, but "was not detained at any point." Instead, he was escorted away from the gate and booked on a different flight, where he passed through security without a problem. So what set off the alarm, and what's with Rand Paul refusing a pat-down?

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Apparently airport security is an issue with the Pauls. Soon after the incident, Ron Paulissued a statement on his campaign website:

The police state in this country is growing out of control. One of the ultimate embodiments of this is the TSA that gropes and grabs our children, our seniors, and our loved ones and neighbors with disabilities. The TSA does all of this while doing nothing to keep us safe.

That is why my ‘Plan to Restore America,’ in additional to cutting $1 trillion dollars in federal spending in one year, eliminates the TSA.

We must restore the freedom and respect for liberty that once made American the greatest nation in human history. I am deeply committed to doing that as President of the United States.

Oh brother. We're grandstanding over airport security screening? I don't even know where to begin with the idea of eliminating TSA altogether. But even if you oppose airport security, until Ron Paul is elected President and cuts the TSA (yeah right), do us all a freaking favor and follow the rules. Set off the alarm? Let the gloved-ones do a pat-down.

The airport security rules should apply to everyone. And if you want to get your civil-disobedience on at the airport, that's your right, I suppose. Just expect the same kind of treatment the Occupy Wall Street protesters get. Oh, what's that? You're a superstar senator on your way to speak at the March for Life in DC? Tough. Follow the rules like everyone else here.

By the way, we still don't know why he set off alarms at one gate but was sent on his merry way at another gate. Did he leave something behind with an assistant? Or did TSA decide to look the other way? Either way, this story still stinks.

Ugh, and now Rand Paul is making the conservative media rounds: Leland Conway, Sean Hannity, Judge Napolitano, Greta Van Susteren. And so it goes. The usual people will be outraged, OUTRAGED! that Rand Paul was so "unjustly" detained by that waste of an agency, the TSA. And the rest of us will just roll our eyes at this nonsense. Is there anyone else left in America who actually wants to govern? Hello?